1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to the detection of specific nucleic acid (NA) sequences.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional methods of detecting specific nucleic acid (NA) sequences often utilize fluorescent labels requiring optics for readout or amplification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), both of which require a somewhat costly and bulky apparatus. There are many assays for sequence-specific DNA detection. Most of them are optical (e.g., microarrays, hairpins conjugated to quenched fluorophores, etc.) or enzyme-based (e.g., restriction fragment length polymorphism and a number of techniques utilizing PCR) and can even include mass spectrometry. Although services utilizing these techniques are offered commercially by a number of sources, the cost for a single specific assay can be somewhat high; the per assay cost can be reduced by running a larger number of assays in parallel.